(22 Sep 2017) LEADIN:
Actress Audrey Hepburn's most famous dresses, jewellery and photographs are going on sale in an auction which Christie's estimates will raise half a million pounds.
The collection has been curated by her sons nearly twenty five years after her death in 1993.
STORYLINE:
Audrey Hepburn introduced the world to the concept of the 'little black dress', statement jewellery and a sense of style which women still emulate decades later.
It was her role as Holly Golightly in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's that sealed her place as a top actress and an icon of the silver screen.
The big hat, cigarette holder and black dress helped the designer Hubert Givenchy become a byword for elegance.
The sale at Christies in London has on-set photos of Hepburn with her male co-star George Peppard, some autographed, along with the annotated script of the film and musical score Moon River.
Director of Christie's private collections, Adrian Hume-Sayer says the photo collection is the backbone of the sale which tells the story of Hepburn's life.
He says: "People loved Audrey she was a phenomenon really, but in terms of pre-sale estimates there's two lots that really stand out particularly amongst the group. One of them is just behind us the Breakfast at Tiffany's script which is her annotated working script bathed in her favourite turquoise ink, you see her copying lines over from one page underlining, annotating."
Hume-Sayer explains: "And when you look at it and look at the film you can see how one relates to the other and it sort of takes you to that moment which is fantastic and actually we've got a great collection of scripts throughout the sale which is kind of the backbone of it. It really tells the story of her career which is so wonderful. We've got My Fair Lady, Sabrina and many others as well."
What makes the sale so interesting is the very personal effects that Hepburn used on a daily basis, including this Cartier compact powder and lipstick case valued at over four thousand British pounds.
The lipstick holder still has some remnants of the actual coral lip colour Hepburn used.
The more valuable items were given as gifts, such as this gold snuff box and matching lighter.
The gift was from Hepburn's co-star in My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison and alludes to their screen characters.
Hepburn was poor flower seller Eliza Doolittle and Harrison was professor Henry Higgins who had the job of polishing away her cockney London accent.
The back of the box is inscribed "To Eliza Doolittle from Henry Higgins"
Hepburn, a gifted ballet dancer, was brought up during the second world war.
Her mother was Baroness Ella van Heemstra of the Netherlands and father was Anglo-Irish businessman Joseph Hepburn-Ruston.
Hepburn's mother was a noble whose family had lost their wealth in the First World War.
They were living in Holland at the time of the Nazi invasion, and Hepburn recalled being starved and digging up bulbs from the ground to eat.
It was a beginning which would make a lasting impression on the way she would look at life.
To her sons she was a mother.
According to her youngest child, Lucca Dotti her greatest gift to them was a normal happy childhood.
Hepburn's sons say they never fully realised how renowned their mother was until her sad death in 1993.
Dotti says: "The moment that really broke that enchantment was when she passed away and that there with the press and all the news and covers in the magazine it was like a where you find out that the world is in love with your mother. There's a hint of jealousy and little by little you understand that it's a privilege."
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26 сен 2017
